Planning Your Talent Acquisition Strategy. Are Pigs the New Cats?

With a growing abundance of vendors and options to choose from, mapping an appropriate talent acquisition strategy can be tricky. But BRANDEblog readers are in luck.

Trendwatching.com was kind enough to provide some tips for trend-tracking this month and some of the tidbits have great applications for HR as well.
1. Don't apply all trends to all people.
"One massive mistake both trend watchers and brands make all the time, is to assume or pretend that a certain consumer trend will affect or be embraced by all consumers. " Replace the word "consumers" with "job seekers" and you'll get the hidden message. Can we all stop tweeting yet?

2. Be (very) curious.
"while we're all set in our own ways, and we have our strict beliefs about what is right and what is wrong, closely observing instead of judging the world around you is tantamount to success." Launch research, do surveys, have focus groups. Knowledge is power and if you don't believe in "post & pray" methodology, find out what's working in your market, in your industry and around your world.

3. "Let others do some of the work for you in 2011"
"YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO ALL OF THE ABOVE YOURSELF. .. let professionals do part of the work for you, even if it's just to help you hit the ground running. We couldn't agree more. As long as there exists great partners to help you plan strategies, facilitate research and implement campaigns, you should take advantage of their talents on your behalf.

So what about the pigs?
A last bit of advice- If you can't tell difference between fads and trends, we know a purr-fect partner.